ABSTRACT
Covering defense and military affairs, Fidel Castro declared that the concept of the War of All the People had crystallized over the last five years and that Cuba’s military doctrine was now wedded to it. Nevertheless, units of the regular armed forces are to be modernized. They are also being reorganized in order to enhance combat readiness on a permanent basis, gain more firepower, and acquire the ability to wage combat independently. Training programs and courses at Military Training Centers, or Centros de Educacion Militar, had integrated concepts of the War of All the People, thus enabling Cuba’s defense forces to combine regular and unconventional warfare methods. In addition, “military service and higher education were brought together and nine college-preparatory military schools were established". During the island-wide defense exercise, solidarity was expressed by foreign military attaches from fraternal countries who, along with their families, dug trenches, constructed a student refuge, and planted a “Friendship Forest.”.
